The drive for innovation in Leicestershire which began in Innovation Week, June 2021 continues today with the launch of a programme of events specifically for SMEs in the county and city.
Leicestershire’s growth hub, The Business Gateway, has commissioned a series of webinars covering all aspects of innovation from the point of view of Small to Medium Sized Enterprises which make up 90% of businesses in Leicestershire.
The webinars, all of which will be delivered at no cost to participating businesses, will begin on 14 September and run all the way through to next Spring. The first topics covered include:
What is Innovation when you’re an SME, Business Model Innovation for your SME, Validating Innovative Ideas in your SME, New Product and Service Innovation for SMEs, Finding the Funds for Innovation, and Leadership Innovation. All webinars take place between 14.00-15.30
This group of webinars will be delivered by Stuart Hartley, Director of the company, Incrementa. He is a highly skilled and experienced Director with a demonstrable history of delivering leadership and business advice and coaching start-ups and scale ups to innovate and grow their businesses. Stuart explained: “I think many people misunderstand this word ‘innovation’ to mean high tech solutions requiring big investment but that is absolutely not the case. When cafés started offering take away coffee during lockdown, that was innovation. When car dealers let you click and collect that was innovation. My goal with these sessions is to help SMEs see innovation as simply a different way of looking at business challenges. And the tools I’ll give them each week, will help them implement this different kind of thinking back at the workplace so that they can save money, save time and grow their business”.
Chairman of Leicestershire’s Innovation Board, Dr Nik Kotecha, commented, “I am delighted to see the Business Gateway continuing to promote an innovation culture across Leicestershire, after the real excitement of Innovation Week. I’m particularly pleased that they’re focussing on SMEs because those small and micro businesses make up 98% of our economy and their future success is vital to the recovery of the whole economy. Every week we see brilliant examples of innovation in Leicestershire and I truly believe that by doing things differently our businesses will become stronger and more sustainable. And we’ll show the rest of the UK that we’re leading the way.”
Future seminars on innovation will be delivered by Leicester company Solvers Studio and Qinesis.
To see the full calendar of Business Gateway events visit www.bizgateway.org.uk/events
